The combination of garish electric guitar and sultry vocals comes from Green Day producer, Rob Cavallo, and Channel Orange producer, James Ho. The most perplexing single to date remains to be ‘Sour Diesel’. The promise of Zayn stumbling on his niche has always outweighed his peripatetic musical output, but his latest string of singles show a greater worry. The couple rekindled their relationship soon after. ‘Entertainer’, which was released after his breakup with Gigi Hadid, expounded the darker side of love: “You were my favourite entertainer I watch you, and laugh and fuck with you.” Casting a Gigi-lookalike read as particularly bitter. The opening line of ‘Let Me’, “Sweet baby, our sex has meaning”, revives the more callow moments of Mind of Mine. Singles released in the lead-up to the album were iterations of Zayn’s early career. ![]() Tinashe, who has received similar criticism for her fledgling music career, totalled 10,000 album-equivalent units with Joyride in 2018. The lack of marketing leading up to the album’s release has been referenced as a major factor for its poor performance. Totalling a projected 15-20,000 album-equivalent units sold, including digital sales and streaming, such poor sales were a dismal result.Īre Music Beefs Actually Bad For Business?Ĭomparatively, Mind of Mine sold 157,000 album-equivalent units, 112,000 of which were pure album sales. Originally scheduled for release in September 2017, Icarus Falls dropped December 14, 2018. But as his grip on the zeitgeist slips, word-of-mouth becomes a less reliable marketing model. If people hear about me from their friend, it’s cooler than me being in their face all the time.”Įxperiencing a level of stardom widely compared to that of The Beatles, One Direction’s enduring fame has kept Zayn afloat despite his stumbles. But a lot of public interviews and being on TV, to me, is more about being a social character, about being a - what’s the word for it, when people are on TV but don’t do anything? Reality TV stars? I don’t buy into that side of things. “I’ll do the music interviews and stuff like that, that actually have something to do with what I’m doing. “I don’t really want to do shitloads of promotion,” he told FADER discussing his then-upcoming album, Icarus Falls. Smoking weed, singing about “fucking” and rebuking the concept of celebrity became a sticking point in interviews.Īs Zayn’s grip on the zeitgeist slips, word-of-mouth becomes a less reliable marketing model. Up until now, Zayn’s career had hinged on an antithetical response to his clinical, good-boy image in One Direction. No longer the only 1D member to release a solo album, he was now joined by Harry Styles and Niall Horan whose soft-rock and acoustic debuts were applauded as authentic and inspired. Jolting from pop ballads and indistinguishable R&B tunes, the intrigue and promise that swathed Zayn began to wane with each misstep. Two years later, ‘Still Got Time’ is as refreshing as it was when first released. Joining producers Murda Beatz (Drake, French Montanna, and Gucci Mane) and Frank Dukes (Travis Scott, Kanye West, Post Malone, and The Weeknd) temporarily exiled Zayn from a puerile and confused musical purgatory. ‘Still Got Time’, the tropical, R&B-cum-dance collaboration with PARTYNEXTDOOR was Zayn’s first contemporary hit free from predictable vocal frills and maudlin subtext. ![]() ![]() It was a comfortable and logical move for Zayn, one which saw the pair debut at number six on the Billboard Hot 100. Baudy yet innocuous, ‘I Don’t Wanna Live Forever’ sees the two trade sexual overtures over an unimaginative Jack Antonoff production. First was an unlikely collaboration with Taylor Swift, for the Fifty Shades Darker soundtrack. Following Mind of Mine, throwaway singles became commonplace. Indecision and a lack of editing plague his musical output. Gawky and unimaginative, Dusk Til’ Dawn’ was a backward step in Zayn’s now two-year solo career. In 2017, he implored that “a tour is definitely on the cards”, after a string of cancelled shows in London, Dubai and Japan. Loose promises of tours are now just easter eggs in rare interviews. Citing anxiety as the main cause, Zayn has yet to tour as a solo artist.
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